I work as part of the housekeeping team in a Premier Inn. Believe it or not, until recently I felt that the pros outweighed the cons. That was how highly I valued the strong sense of team spirit I shared with my co-workers. When faced with a long list of rooms and the cutting of the hours in which to clean them, we all just knuckled down and got on with it, all mucking on together to get the job done. Now somebody in management has, like a new broom made sweeping changes to the way we work. We have been told we have to complete our own list, then leave. We are not supposed to help others to finish their work, nor are we allowed to work in same room as someone else. Thank you very much, whoever did this, you are doing your best to kill our team spirit, it seems. We are being constantly harangued about 'going over our hours'. This is why these changes are taking place. When put into perspective supposing we go over by say 10 hours in a week, that would only cost the company £66. It is peanuts! Less than what they might lose if a room remained unsold or they had to reimburse a guest. I don't understand why such a huge profit making company needs to be so penny pinching. Now that we are not allowed to help one another or work together in a room, which might allow for a brief chat, ie normal human interaction. It makes us feel dehumanized. We may as well be robots!

The job was very social and friendly (with customers) it had a lot of potential to move up

Cons

Management let personal issues come before work related issues, lack of social life and favouritism when it comes to holidays. Hard to fit in

Advice to ManagementAdvice

You should choose your favourite employee to have time off, you should let people have more of a social life and let people settle in without it being a clique. Don't get personal when it comes to work matters.

Potential to progress quickly if you are willing to put up with their TERRIBLE marketing strategies and lack of thought with everything they do.

Cons

If you work in Head Office it's a great job,..If you work in a restaurant or hotel, it is truly going to take your life away. There is a complete expectation for you to give everything to get nothing. I was once even offered a promotion with no pay rise at all, and the excuse was "It's for your development". More for less. I cannot begin to explain the atrocious lack of actual management at higher level. All they do is hide behind words that are meaningless. The policies and targets that are set clearly come from people that have never worked on a floor level. Having worked my way up from the bottom, in 3 years working for Whitbread, I have seen 14 managers get dismiised. This is all coming from someone that has worked in a restaurant, I have truly been astonished with the incompetance of almost all of the managers (Area Manager and above) over my time there.

Advice to ManagementAdvice

Work in one of your establishments before bringing out some ridiculous marketing or policy that pretty much forces people to work without breaks.

Hard to say as nothing jumps to mind. I guess there is some comfort in knowing that the vast majority of your colleagues are in the same bad situation as you are. With a network as big as Whitbreads there is in theory a lot of opportunity for career advancement, however in reality unless you are an ass-kisser then you will get nowhere!

Cons

Poor salary. Understaffed and therefore very over worked. Working in an enviroinment where there is zero room for anything out of the norm to happen without serious consequence to operations, makes for an extremely stressful life. And when these types of issue are not standard across your competitors, you feel totally demotivated and no loyalty to the company.

Advice to ManagementAdvice

Look after your employees - think about their quality of work environment. Stop over working your people, and treat them as you would like to be treated